Canaccord stays at 'buy' on Petropavlovsk following Q3 sales and production data

With nine-month gold sales up by 24% on the previous year's level a 351,400/oz. and own mine sales of 342,600/oz., the broker said that the company's forecast for full-year own mine sales of 450,000-500,000oz was "readily achievable".

However, "harder to determine, is the ramp-up of sales from third-party concentrates, particularly since these are likely to be batch-treated," analyst Nich Hatch said in a research report sent to clients.

Year-to-date and for the third quarter, Petropavlovsk had only produced 13,100/oz. of gold from third party concentrates, versus the 100,800/oz. that had penciled-in for the year.

"Overall, however, we see this as a significant additional revenue generator for the group. We will review our forecasts in light of today's release and positive recent revisions to CG's gold price deck."